No Moral Judgments

by Kerby Anderson, Point of View: There is growing evidence that the moral education in our schools are making it harder and harder for students to make moral judgments. In my book, Christian Ethics in Plain Language, I write about a professor who said he has never met a student who denied the Holocaust happened. But he also reported that 10 to 20 percent of his students cannot bring themselves to say that killing millions of people is wrong.

Chuck Colson provided me with another powerful example when he quoted from an article written in Education Forum. The particular article was written by Dr. Stephen Anderson and carries the title “Moment of Startling Clarity.” He was teaching a philosophy class in Canada and had been talking about social justice issues. In an effort to get his students thinking, he decided to shock them and make them commit to an ethical judgment.

He opened the discussion by showing them a photo of Bibi Aisha. You may have seen this photo before. She was the Afghani teenager who was forced into an abusive marriage with a Taliban fighter. He abused her and kept her with the animals. When she attempted to flee, her family caught her, hacked off her nose and ears, and left her for dead in the mountains. After crawling to her grandfather’s house, she was saved by a nearby American hospital.

If you haven’t see the picture of her, let me just say it is hard to look at. Stephen Anderson was sure that the students seeing the suffering of this poor girl would have a clear ethical reaction. He was wrong. Many of the students had trouble looking at the picture, but they also had trouble making a moral judgment.

He says that the students were essentially confused. The didn’t seem to know what to think. When they did speak, they went out of their way to avoid making any moral judgment. They said things like, “We might not like it, but maybe over there it’s okay.” Another said (with no awareness of the self-contradiction) that, “It’s just wrong to judge other cultures.”

This is what moral education has given us today. Students seem almost unable to make a moral judgment even in the face of a horrible action. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.
-----------
Kirby Anderson is an author, lecturer, visiting professor and radio host and contributor on nationally syndicated "Point of View" and the "Probe" radio programs.

---

Tags: Kerby Anderson, Point of View, moral judgements, moral education, Christian Ethics, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!